Christmas Traditions

I feel like I've been in a blogging rut lately. I started this blog a little over a year ago and I was getting afraid that I would end up repeating myself and I can only post so many pics of the kids before that gets boring. Then I got an E-mail from Erica the other day about some facts she learned about Christmas stockings while at her local museum. That's when I decided to do a series of posts on Christmas traditions. There are so many of them that we take for granted. It's always nice to know why we celebrate the way we do and where these traditions come from. 

Christmas Stockings

The history of the Christmas stocking dates back almost 2000 years with a widower and his three daughters. They were very poor and the girls would never marry without a dowry and would likely become prostitutes. One evening after the girls washed their stockings and hung them up to dry, they all went to bed. A traveller to the region by the name of Nicholas of Myra, heard of the family's sufferings and decided to help the young girls by leaving them each a bag of gold. Whether he threw the bags down the chimney or through the window is unknown, but however he did it, the bags landed in the girls' stockings.  News of the anonymous gifts quickly spread and soon others were leaving their stockings out by the fire in hopes that they too would receive gifts. 

Many traditions include leaving gifts in the stockings that stimulate the five senses:

     1. something to eat

     2. something that makes noise

     3. something that is visually pleasing, like jewelry or crayons

     4. something to touch, like a soft toy

     5. something with a distinct smell, like perfume or bubble bath